Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker had a bad night Wednesday — so bad, in fact, that it may mean doom for his presidential campaign.

In the weeks leading up to the debate, stories about Walker's declining poll numbers seemed to appear on every website covering politics. The conservative magazine National Review published a long profile entitled "Scott Walker: What went wrong?" that posited that he would need to change course soon to save his presidential chances. The Atlantic published a deeply reported piece by Molly Ball that also had a question mark in the title: "Can Scott Walker save himself?" The answer, rather strongly implied, was no. An article in Politico called the debate Walker's "last best chance."

If that is what it was, he missed his chance.

It is not that the governor of our great state made any huge mistake in Wednesday night's Republican presidential debate, hosted by CNN in what appeared to be some kind of super-heated airplane hangar. (The candidates were visibly sweating within the first 20 minutes; by the end, several looked like they had been crawling through the desert in the "Mad Max" movies.) Walker had a decent, feisty exchange with Donald Trump in the first half-hour. He delivered a couple of canned zingers that weren't very good as jokes but were recognizable as the joke-like sentences many politicians like to say.

The problem was what came after that. For 10, 20, 30 minutes at a stretch, Walker did not speak. The camera did not alight on him for a reaction shot. He could be heard occasionally off-screen, laughing at another candidate's joke-like sentences, but no one was attacking him and he was not attacking anyone.

There were 11 candidates on the stage. Walker ended the debate in dead last place for airtime, having spoken for 8½ minutes compared with Trump's nearly 19 minutes and Jeb Bush's nearly 16, according to a tally by NPR.

But as a campaign, what moves does Walker have left? Last week he gave a speech unveiling sweeping proposed limits on public employee unions at the federal level — bringing Wisconsin's Act 10 to Washington, you could say. It hasn't helped his poll numbers and received no mention at the debate. Last month, he unveiled an Obamacare replacement plan that was light on details and probably politically impossible, but which nevertheless was a more concrete plan than what other Republican rivals have put forward. Walker shoehorned in a single mention of the plan at the debate, but no one took the bait and no one really wanted to talk about health care on Wednesday.

One of the things the Atlantic story reported was that, whether Walker wins or loses this campaign, most people do not expect Walker to seek another term as governor.

I've heard the same; it is an assumption that is rampant in Wisconsin political circles, where planning and posturing has started behind the scenes for the next governor's contest in 2018 (or before, if Walker either becomes president or gets a cabinet post in the Trump administration). In a weird way, it has made Walker seem like something of a lame duck in his own state. He is a politician who has always seemed driven by an aspiration for higher office. If and when that option closes itself off, I wonder what he'll do.

Robert Mentzer is storytelling coach and a columnist for Gannett Central Wisconsin Media. Contact: rmentzer@gannett.com, 715-845-0604; on Twitter: @robertmentzer.